When the 107th Congress convened this January, the first piece of legislation
introduced in both the House and Senate was an overhaul of federal elementary
and secondary education programs. The bill designations of H.R.1 and S.1
reflected the high priority education received as a campaign issue for
many members of Congress and especially for President Bush.

A cornerstone of the president’s education plan is school accountability
achieved through regular testing for reading and math in grades 3 through
8. This approach alarmed science educators, because school districts and
state boards of education are likely to concentrate classroom time and
funds for professional teacher development on those subject areas where
school performance is measured. Since only reading and math were to be
tested, science was likely to suffer.

To address this problem, a provision was included in the original
House and Senate bills to require science testing alongside reading and
math. But when H.R.1 emerged from the Education and the Workforce Committee
for debate on the House floor, science testing was gone. Although Rep.
Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.) sought to have an amendment considered that would
restore science testing, the House leadership never gave him the chance
before the bill was put to a final vote on May 23.

What happened? No formal reason was given, but word slowly leaked
out that a group of conservative lawmakers had asked that the science testing
requirement be removed out of concern that the tests would include questions
about a certain subject. What subject could cause such consternation? None
other than evolution.

The ‘sense
of the Senate’?Meanwhile, across the Capitol, the Senate devoted six weeks of floor
debate to S.1 from early May and into June. Science testing was not challenged,
but on the next to last day of debate, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) rose
to speak on an amendment that he had introduced the previous evening. He
described the amendment, written in the form of a non-binding Senate resolution,
as “two rather innocuous sentences:”

“It is the sense of the Senate that --
“(1) good science education should prepare students to distinguish
the data or testable theories of science from philosophical or religious
claims that are made in the name of science; and
“(2) where biological evolution is taught, the curriculum should help
students to understand why this subject generates so much continuing controversy,
and should prepare the students to be informed participants in public discussions
regarding the subject.”

The first clause is indeed rather innocuous, although it is worth noting
that the inclusion of religion in addition to philosophy was the result
of a last-minute addition to the original: the words “or religious” were
literally penciled in on the printed copy of the amendment submitted to
the clerk. The second clause is the more telling and troubling. It singles
out biological evolution as a topic beset by controversy, and then insists
that this controversy should be included in scientific instruction. Yet
from a scientific standpoint, evolution is not controversial at all but
is one of the most robust, comprehensive and well-tested theories we have.
If political controversy is meant, then why limit the second clause to
evolution? Many areas of science, such as climate change and stem cell
research, are embroiled in political debates. Finally, why should the Senate
suddenly involve itself in a debate that has heretofore been limited to
state and local levels?

These questions were not addressed. After making his remarks,
Santorum asked for a formal roll call vote to put the Senate on record.
The resulting vote was 91-8 in favor of the amendment. The only senators
who opposed it were all Republicans who felt the amendment was an unwarranted
federal intrusion into a local issue.

To understand why the vote was so lopsided, we must view it in
context. Floor debate for S. 1 was managed by the chairman and ranking
member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee: Sens. Edward
M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). The managers determine who
gets to speak and which amendments are considered. For a major piece of
legislation like S.1, the number of amendments run into the hundreds, and
senators often rely on the managers for guidance on how to vote. Accepting
Santorum’s assurance that the amendment was “innocuous,” Kennedy endorsed
it because it encouraged children to “examine various scientific theories
on the basis of all the information that is available to them.” Faced with
dozens of votes on amendments that day, most senators simply followed the
leader. Not until later would they find out what (and who) was behind the
amendment.

The man
behind the curtainIt did not take long for the true purpose behind Santorum’s amendment
to emerge. Groups opposed to the teaching of evolution were quick to claim
victory. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) stated that the Senate vote vindicated
the original 1999 Kansas school board decision that removed evolution and
the age of Earth from state tests. University of California at Berkeley
law professor Phillip Johnson, a leading proponent of Intelligent Design
(ID) creationism, told The Washington Times that he had met with
Santorum earlier in the month and helped to draft the amendment at the
senator’s request.

Johnson’s involvement with the amendment is to be expected. He
has written extensively about driving a wedge into evolutionary theory,
exposing its weaknesses and then replacing it with ID theory (which holds
that the irreducible complexity of living organisms must reflect the work
of an intelligent designer). The wedge strategy calls for breaking evolution’s
intellectual hold in this country, with Congress as one of the key targets.
Johnson was one of several prominent ID leaders who spoke last summer at
a Capitol Hill briefing that summarized the failings of evolutionary theory,
the moral degradation that it encourages, and the promise of their alternative
theory (see Geotimes, July 2000). The briefing was troubling on
two counts: first, it brought an issue to Congress that had previously
been debated at the state and local levels; and second, the briefing took
place as the House was working on education reform legislation -- the forerunner
of H.R.1. The events of this summer confirm concerns expressed at the time
that the briefing signaled the opening of a new political front by evolution
opponents.

End gameCongressional staff spent much of the August recess hammering out compromises
between the House and Senate education bills. A joint House-Senate conference
committee is meeting in early September to work out the final deal, which
will then be presented to both houses and, if passed, sent to the president.
With broad bipartisan support, science testing should make it into the
final bill. Its clandestine removal in the House was not attempted in the
Senate, and science educators have launched a major effort to ensure its
enactment into law.

Because Santorum’s amendment is a non-binding resolution, its inclusion
in the Senate bill is purely symbolic. But evolution opponents will use
their symbolic victory to push for more tangible gains in future legislation.

Since the bill emerging from the House-Senate conference will replace
the earlier Senate version, conferees can take a symbolic stand by dropping
the resolution from the final bill. The American Geological Institute and
other scientific and educational organizations have asked conferees to
do just that, citing the unfairness of singling out evolution as a controversial
theory, the manner in which the Senate vote has been used by evolution
opponents and the dangerous precedent that the resolution sets for congressional
involvement in the evolution debate.

Whether or not Santorum’s handiwork ends up in the final bill, the ease
with which he enlisted his colleagues’ support shows that we have a long-term
challenge to sensitize congressional education staff to the evolution debate.
We must make sure that future anti-evolution efforts -- clandestine or
otherwise -- will be opposed by supporters of genuine “good science education.”

Applegate directs the American Geological
Institute’s Government Affairs Program and is editor of Geotimes.
E-mail: applegate@agiweb.org.